Michelangelo Antonioni

Michelangelo Antonioni
File:Antonioni.jpg
Born
September 29, 1912 Ferrara, Emilia Romagna, Italy
Died

Michelangelo Antonioni (born September 29, 1912) is an Italian modernist film director whose films are widely considered as some of the most influential in film aesthetics.

Life

Antonioni was born in Ferrara, Emilia Romagna.

He graduated in economics at the University of Bologna. He went to Rome in 1940 where he attended specifical studies at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Cinecittà. There he met some of the artists with whom he cooperated in the future years; among them Roberto Rossellini.

Work

Antonioni's first major success was L'Avventura (1960), which was followed by La Notte (1961) and L'eclisse (1962). These three films are commonly referred to as a trilogy because they are stylistically similar and all concerned with the alienation of man within the modern world. His first color film, Il deserto rosso (1964), deals with similar themes, and is sometimes considered the fourth film of the "trilogy". Actress Monica Vitti appears in L'Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), L'eclisse (1962), and Il deserto rosso (1964).

He signed a three-picture deal with producer Carlo Ponti. Each film had to be in English and were to be released by MGM. The first, Blowup (1966), which was set in England, was a major success. Though it dealt with the challenging theme of the impossibility of objective standards, it was a successful and popular hit with audiences, no doubt helped by its sexually explicit (for the time) scenes. It starred David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave. The park scenes from the film were set in Maryon Park, Charlton, London. The second film, Zabriskie Point (1970), his first film set in America, was much less successful, even though its soundtrack incorporated such popular artists as Pink Floyd (who wrote new music specifically for the film), the Grateful Dead, and the Rolling Stones. The third, The Passenger (1975), which starred Jack Nicholson, received critical praise as well. After long being out of circulation, The Passenger had a limited theatrical run in October of 2005 by Sony Pictures Classics and has subsequently been released on DVD.

Il Mistero di Oberwald (The Mystery of Oberwald) (1980) was an experiment of electronic treatment of color, recorded in video and then translated to film. It is based on an original history of Jean Cocteau and has more to do with Visconti's themes and obsessions than Antonioni's.

Identificazione di una donna (Identification of a Woman) (1982), filmed in Italy, deals one more time with the recursive subjects of Italian trilogy.

In 1985, he suffered a stroke, but has been able to continue making films, albeit in a limited capacity (he cannot talk).

Wim Wenders filmed interludes for his Beyond the Clouds (1995), but they were mostly rejected by Antonioni at the editing stage. The beach sequence and the last sequence, however, remained in the final cut.

In 1996, Antonioni was given an Academy Award for lifetime achievement. It was presented to him by Jack Nicholson. Months later, the statuette was stolen by burglars. Previously, he was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Director and for Best Screenplay, for Blowup.

Eros (2004) - segment "Il filo pericoloso delle cose" ("The Dangerous Thread of Things")- was filmed when Antonioni was at his 90s. The short film's episodes are framed by dreamy paintings and the song "Michelangelo Antonioni", composed and sung by Caetano Veloso. The U.S. DVD release of the film includes another short film by Antonioni: In Lo sguardo di Michelangelo (The Gaze of Michelangelo) (2004) - we can see Michelangelo Antonioni as an actor for the first time.

Trivia

He was referenced in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, when Eric Idle, playing Inspector Baboon of Scotland Yard's Special Fraud Film Director Squad, Jungle Division, arrests someone accused of impersonating "Signor" Michelangelo Antonioni. He continues an academic discourse of Antonioni's film career as the credits begin to roll. [1]

Antonioni was referenced in the song La Vie Boheme from the Broadway musical Rent.

Themes

He described himself as a Marxist intellectual, but some authors advance some doubts about his effective adherence to Marxism. In contrast with his contemporaries, including the neorealists and also Federico Fellini, Ermanno Olmi and Pier Paolo Pasolini, whose stories generally dealt with the lives of the working class and the misfits and outcasts of society, Antonioni's most notable films revolved around the elite and the urban bourgeois. However, contrary to what these critics say, his films depict his wealthy characters as empty and aimless, rather than romanticizing them. La Notte depicts the disintegration of a wealthy married couple who can no longer connect meaningfully; L'Avventura depicts the story of a woman who goes missing during a yachting trip, and whose fiance and best friend subsequently develop a sexual relationship but are unable to develop genuine love for each other; Blowup depicts the superficial world of a 1960s fashion photographer in the "mod" scene, who in the end proves indifferent when called upon to report a potential murder. In a similar vein, Zabriskie Point is often interpreted as a criticism of American capitalism, and, though seemingly critical of bourgeois American hippies, sympathetically depicts their desire for escape. Antonioni's films also tend to be sensitive to the beauty of landscapes—such as the California desert in Zabriskie Point, or the rocky islands in L'Avventura—which adds not only to the visual quality of his work, but also to his depiction of the rich as arrogant lost souls vainly attempting to impose their finite will upon an unyielding and sublime nature. Thus, despite his critics, Antonioni's films dissect the rich with a disapproving Marxist sensibility, even as his camerawork displays a fascination for the ornate settings of the wealthy class.

Style

Ingmar Bergman once remarked that he admired some of Antonioni's films for their detached and sometimes dreamlike quality. His films tend to have spare plots and dialogue, and much of the screen time is spent lingering on certain settings—such as the ten-minute continuous take in The Passenger, or the many scenes in La Notte which show the female character simply wandering the city silently observing other people. His films are full of visual beauty, and are perfectly calculated to capture the alienation of the characters, often accomplished in a spare, slow-moving style. Because of this meandering long-winded style, a common joke in the film world is to call the filmmaker "Michaelangelo Antoni-oni-oni-oni-oni..."

Filmography

• Gente del Po (People of the Po, 1943)
• Nettezza urbana (Dustmen, 1948)
• Oltre L'oblio (1948)
• Roma-Montevideo (1948)
• L'Amorosa menzogna (1949)
• Sette cani e un vestito (1949)
• Bomarzo (1949)
• Ragazze in Bianco (1949)
• Superstizione (1949)
• La villa dei mostri (The House of Monsters, 1950)
• Cronaca di un amore (Chronicle of a Love, 1950)
• La Funivia del Faloria (1950)
• I vinti (The Vanquished) (1952)
• La signora senza camelie (Camille Without Camellias) (1953)
• Tentato Suicido (When Love Fails) - episode in L'Amore in Città (Love in the City, 1953)
• Le amiche (The Girl Friends, 1955)
• Il grido (The Outcry, 1957)
• L'avventura (The Adventure) (1960)
• La Notte (The Night) (1961)
• L'eclisse (The Eclipse) (1962)
• Il deserto rosso (The Red Desert) (1964)
• I Tre volti (The Three Faces of a Woman) (1965) "Il provino" segment
• Blowup (1966)
• Zabriskie Point (1970)
• Chung Kuo (1972) (documentary)
• Professione: reporter (The Passenger) (1975)
• Il Mistero di Oberwald (The Mystery of Oberwald, 1980)
• Identificazione di una donna (Identification of a Woman, 1982)
• Volcanoes and Carnival (1992)
• Beyond the Clouds (Par Dela Les Nuages, 1995) (co-credited with Wim Wenders)
• Eros (2004) — segment "Il filo pericoloso delle cose" ("The Dangerous Thread of Things")
• Lo sguardo di Michelangelo (2004) Tren de sombras (español)

Bibliographies

• Antonioni Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)

Books

• Unfinished Business: Screenplays, Scenarios, and Ideas, ISBN 1-56886-051-X. (Introduction by Thomas J. Harrison)
• Blow Up... and Other Exaggerations: The Autobiography of David Hemmings, by David Hemmings. ISBN 1-86105-789-X.
• My Time With Antonioni: The Diary of an Extraordinary Experience, by Wim Wenders. ISBN 0-571-20076-1. (This is a diary of the filming of Antonioni's Beyond the Clouds. This is a small paperback edition. However, the French, German and Italian editions of this diary are expensive books with a great collection of beautifully printed pictures taken on the set by Wim Wenders and his wife Donata. See the next item)
• Avec Michelangelo Antonioni. Chronique d'un film, by Wim Wenders. ISBN 2-85181-369-2. (This is the French edition of Wenders' book, including color and black and white pictures taken on the set by Wim Wenders and his wife Donata)
• Antonioni, or, The Surface of the World, by Seymour Chatman. ISBN 0-520-05341-9.
• The Films of Michelangelo Antonioni, by Peter Brunette. ISBN 0-521-38992-5.

External links

• Michelangelo Antonioni Archive : Michelangelo Antonioni Archive
• M.Antonioni : Tribute site
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Essay on La notte
• Michelangelo Antonioni at the Internet Movie Database
• Michelangelo Antonioni @ pHinnWeb
• French Michelangelo Antonioni
• Autobiographical interview with/by Michelangelo Antonioni in Cahiers du Cinema from 1960
• Interview with Antonioni from 1969
• The Passenger Meets History, by Robert Koehler
• Eros: una pequeña metáfora en sí misma
• Review of The Passenger in its 2005 re-release. SlantMagazine.com
• Review of The Passenger in its 2005 re-release. Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times, 11/04/2005
• Review of The Passenger in its 2005 re-release. Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 10/28/2005
• Review of The Passenger in its 2005 re-release. Rex Reed, New York Observer, 10/27/2005

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